


My breast is lit with flames

by ancarett



Category: Emma (2020), Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28102581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/pseuds/ancarett
Summary: Life for Emma and George at Hartfield isn't all songs and sunshine, but sometimes a small escape can make all the difference.
Relationships: George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse
Comments: 13
Kudos: 116
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	My breast is lit with flames

**Author's Note:**

  * For [patrokla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/gifts).



"Signor Fioretti will be arriving tomorrow to tune our pianoforte," George Knightley offhandedly advised as he turned the page of the book and shifted one leg minutely away from the fire that roared enthusiastically in the hearth of the main withdrawing room at Hartfield. Two grand upholstered chairs flanked the fireplace: one occupied by Emma's husband, the other by her father.

Emma immediately lifted her eyes up from the tambour frame she had been idly fingering - it was not a pastime which she greatly enjoyed but to be caught doing nothing at all was certain to concern Mr. Woodhouse that she was sickening with something. Emma almost, almost!, let a querying frown crease her brow but catching her father's fretful eye, she instead smiled widely and let loose a response that would quell rather than excite her father's fancies.

"That will be excellent, my dear," she contented herself with replying. "We get such enjoyment out of our musical nights here, particularly when we can host dear friends like the Westons."

George closed his book, a treatise on scientific farming, and favoured his wife with a bright smile of his own. She felt her heartbeat rush ahead as he responded. "Yes, indeed. And I had thought almost a fortnight ago, that the piano sounded a bit flat. So I wrote to Fioretti and he confirmed that he would be happy to include Donwell Abbey and Hartfield on his itinerary this month. He completed his work there today and will come here tomorrow."

George turned his regard to his father-in-law whose face was slightly clouded with confusion. "I am sorry. I neglected to confer with you on this matter, sir. After all, you are the master of Hartfield."

"Nonsense," Mr. Woodhouse said emphatically. "This is your house now, as Emma and I have both said, and I find it a great comfort that you are here to handle such matters."

"Just so," George nodded. "And when my brother's family arrives for their holiday visit, Emma and I can serenade them with some music, perfectly in tune."

Mr. Woodhouse appeared quite taken with that thought, but then his face crumpled with the beginning of a frown. "I am not certain that the music room will be warm enough for winter entertainment. Those windows. Dreadfully drafty!"

Emma leaned forward to stretch out one hand and catch her father's attention. "No, remember, father? George took care this summer to have the windows reglazed when I had discussed the prospect of refurbishing the room but you did not want the change."

"Such innovations as you contemplated would be entirely unhealthful, Emma, dear," her father querulously complained. "Why, you wanted to replace the velvet curtains with damask and was not there talk of chaises? Rickety and dangerous!"

Emma bit her lip, remembering her father's objections to the redecoration she had proposed. In the end, only near-invisible refurbishments were achieved. Mr. Woodhouse was suspicious of any change. Were it not for _Ackermann's_ and _La Belle Assemblée_ 's regularly published fashion plates providing inimitable proof of new styles, Emma knew her father would dress them both in the styles of the past century.

George must have intuited something of her distress, for he raised a hand to catch his father-in-law's attention. "Why, sir, rest assured. There is nothing so unhappy in the music room here."

But Mr. Woodhouse turned his worries to a different tack. "But I have made you unhappy, have I not Emma? For those were your designs, were they not? And I refused you. You would be mistress of your own home at Donwell, but here you live, captive to a crotchety old man."

Seeing her father drooping with regret, Emma swiftly knelt at her father's feet, gathering his hands in her own. "Oh, no, papa, no never! Those were idle thoughts, that is all. Why, George and I, we are happy as grigs here with you, papa. You know that!"

Her sincerity must have been convincing, for Mr. Woodhouse visibly relaxed into his chair. and began to offer a series of observations on the townspeople he had seen on their last carriage drive through Highbury.

Emma resigned herself to making some progress with the embroidery destined to cover a jewellery box, although she despaired of the work ever resembling the riot of flowers that the pattern suggested. Perhaps she should organize a different gift for her former governess, she mused, as she struggled with the tambour hook to smoothly align a row of stitches purportedly defining a leaf but which rather more resembled a sea-monster.

"Emma, what do you think?"

She started a bit and put down the hook with real relief. "I do beg your pardon, father," Emma said. "I was not fully attending. This embroidery is, erm, demanding."

George's knowing grin made her eyes flash in warning, even as Emma demurely tilted her head in search of her father's forgiveness. "I do not mind, Emma, when I know that you are caught up in your artistry," Mr. Woodhouse said. "George and I had only been talking, however, about his desire to see how well Signor Fioretti's work went at Donwell Abbey. But there is only tomorrow that will do given your sister's upcoming visit and I, of course, cannot join you, for I am having my hair cut."

Emma lowered her eyes to conceal the sparkles of laughter that might be apparent. Mr. Woodhouse was fixed in his belief that hair cuts sapped a man's vitality, consequent of an old acquaintance's untimely death soon after his valet had cut his hair in the latest mode. Such a worry had almost caused Emma's father to adopt an old-fashioned queue until Mr. Perry's advice to stay indoors and risk no exertion the day of a haircut was deemed sufficient caution for such a draining endeavour. Mr. Woodhouse despaired that such wisdom still eluded his vigorous son-in-law, who happily ventured out and about, regardless of how recently his hair had been trimmed.

"So, George, are you to journey to Donwell Abbey by yourself?" Emma was only a little bit put-out, she told herself, at the prospect of a long, dreary day on her own with little else but household management and correspondence to occupy her besides the loathsome embroidery.

"Why, no, my dear," her husband said. "As I was saying, I propose that you and I, together, visit Donwell. After all, how can I tell how well the pianoforte sounds now that it has been tuned, if there is no one around to play it for me?"

Emma smirked slightly as she pushed the tambour frame to one side and rose to her feet. In two steps she was standing beside her husband in the wing chair and could drop a gentle kiss on his upturned lip. "What a lovely idea, George," she said. "And how kind you are to suggest that I would be worthy to play your instrument."

Her husband's eyebrows lifted dramatically at that last phrase and his cheeks took on a ruddy tinge not entirely due to the crackling fire. "There is no one else I would ask, Emma," he said huskily but with a hint of warning, reminding her of the unseemly prospect of flirting too openly in front of her father.

Emma let her lips quirk in acknowledgment even as she pressed her lips one more time to George's forehead. "Why, I have a kind husband, do I not, father? He will give up the prospect of a quiet and productive visit to Donwell, conferring with his steward and reviewing accounts, in order to offer me an outing and music."

She resumed her seat beside the discarded embroidery and turned her attention to conversing more with her father, who had many opinions on the dangers of too much indulgence in outings and music. George resumed carefully reading his treatise, although Emma noted him shooting her occasional heated sidelong looks as the evening progressed. 

Emma stifled a yawn and Mr. Woodhouse looked at the clock with some surprise. "It is quite late," he wailed, and called for a footman to escort him to his chamber, offering only a hurried good night to his daughter and son-in-law, before heading off.

Emma accepted George's proffered arm and they both thanked the remaining footman who stepped into the room ready to bank the fire as they moved into the dimly lit hall. "My dear," Emma said softly, "an outing for just us two? I am entirely in awe of how well you handled this! But how could you keep it a secret?"

George smiled brightly as they entered their suite. "Emma, I did not want to disappoint. I was not sure this would all come together, but it has and tomorrow will be our treat."

Emma watched as her husband stepped away to his dressing room. His man, Wilkins, would be waiting there to help George ready for bed, even as Emma's abigail was bustling to the young married woman's side to help take down the elaborate hairstyle she'd arranged just a few hours earlier.

"Thank you, Betsy," Emma offered as she rose from the seat at her dressing table. "I'll brush my hair myself, later. Just help me into my nightrail, please, and then you can take your own rest."

Her maid glanced across the room at the dressing-room door and nodded to herself before circling Emma to loosen laces. Efficiently, almost conspiratorially, the two women worked to get Emma into the silky nightgown. "Goodnight, ma'am," Betsy said, as she closed the bedroom door and hurried away.

Not a moment later, George was striding in from the dressing room, wearing a forest green banyan belted at the waist. "I thought she would never leave," he complained. 

Emma laughed as she twirled into his embrace. "Silly man," she chided.

"Impatient," George corrected. "For an opportunity to be alone with you. There are damned few of those, as you well know."

He reached over for the silver-backed hairbrush lying on her dressing tray. "Permit me?"

Emma seated herself with an imperious nod, closing her eyes and letting her neck relax as George carefully, lovingly, loosened the remnants of curls and waves that Betsy had coaxed into her hair before dinner. His fingers, slightly roughened with the work he did outside, alongside the labourers both at Hartfield and Donwell Abbey, caught occasionally on the silken smoothness of her blonde hair, but Emma minded not a bit. This was heaven or, at least she added with a secret smile, a prelude _to_ heaven.

"Enough," she said and George wordlessly lay the brush back down before her. Emma noticed that he had bent close enough that the warmth of his breath caressed her cheek and she turned her lips to catch his in a burning kiss. Heedlessly, not quite certain how it happened, they were on the bed, Emma impatiently untying the belt to shove silk from her husband's body as he did the same with her thin nightrail, and then they focused entirely on each other as the fire burned long and low against the winter's cold.

***

Emma let one gloved hand rest possessively on the woolen sleeve of her husband's russet greatcoat. She herself was snug against the morning chill in an olive pelisse and there was no wind to speak of on the sunny morning as George lightly snapped the reins and the pair of bays trotted away from Hartfield. "Excited?" George asked dryly as he eyed Emma's bright smile.

"Ecstatic," she corrected him with a pert nod as the horses picked up the pace, trotting down the long drive. It was a greater distance to Donwell Abbey by road than on foot, but in light of the cold weather and Mr. Woodhouse's habit of worry, the young married couple agreed that it was better to travel by roads between the two properties. That didn't mean they had to be utterly swaddled and the enclosed carriage was dismissed in favour of the open phaeton.

As George expertly turned his matched pair onto the main road and north towards the Knightley estate, they talked idly of the families and farms nearby. It wasn't long before the horses turned again, this time on the curving drive leading to Donwell Abbey. Clearly, they were expected for a groom walked up to the bays as George halted at the front entrance. As soon as he had handed Emma down from her perch, the front doors opened, welcoming the master and mistress.

Inside it was a flurry of activity, with Mrs. Kendall, the housekeeper, patiently supervising the footmen accepting Emma's and George's coats along with their gloves and hats, all whisked away to await their call. Tea was offered but put politely put aside for later. "It is the music room we are here to see, Mrs. Kendall," George politely explained. "But we will take tea after."

Nodding her assent, the housekeeper curtseyed and returned to the back of the house. "I am afraid we must endure quite a fuss, Emma," her husband confessed.

"It is the price you pay for living in exile," Emma commiserated.

George chuckled as they made their way to the music room in the west wing. "Can you really call Hartfield a place of exile? That suggests suffering and loneliness. I do not suffer there," George countered.

"Compared to being comfortable in your own home with only your own responsibilities, and not twice those plus my father and I to manage? Why, yes, I could," Emma said decisively.

George's hand cupped her elbow so that Emma pivoted to face him, just outside of the music room. His gaze was direct and heartfelt. "At Hartfield I am with you, Emma, my love. The only exile I can imagine is when I am parted from you," George said, and took a kiss from her lips.

Emma savoured that contact and the racing leap it brought to her heartbeat.

"Now, will you want to see how our pianoforte fared, here?" George asked, and escorted her into the music room with a flourish.

Emma was about to object to so much fuss being made about a newly-tuned musical instrument when her eyes took in a vastly different sight. The music room at Donwell Abbey with which she was well familiar and seemed to have likely last been refreshed in the days of George II, was entirely redone. Soft damask drapes framed windows at the far end of the room while new furniture, gleaming dark rosewood set off a muted green chintz upholstery on chairs and elegant lush chaise longues, all clustered pleasingly along the gold carpet leading the eye to a gleaming pianoforte and a music stand beside which sat her husband's violin case.

Emma stepped in, silently assessing the changes. "This is entirely to my taste," she commented thoughtfully as she strode further into the space, dragging her fingers over the sinuous curve of a chaise back.

George's steps behind her were muffled by the lush carpeting. "I hoped so," he said, "for I kept all of your notes from Hartfield, and provided them to the builders here. John and Isabella helped to co-ordinate the London merchants providing the furnishings according to your preferences."

Emma twirled on her toes and mischievously danced back over to the music room's open door. Peeking out, she nodded decisively and then reached out with her left hand to pull the open door closed. Her eyes darted to the right before spying the room key resting on a table. "Perfect," Emma exclaimed and she applied key to lock until a satisfying click was heard.

"Whatever are you doing, my love?" was breathed into her ear as Emma stood with one hand still upon the lock. His hands were free to shape her torso, skimming temptingly from hip to flit past her waist.

Emma left the key in the lock and spun sharply free from her husband's grasp, rotating him on his heel so that he slammed his back against the door with a surprised "omph" of exhaled breath.

"I," she pronounced emphatically, "am preparing to punish and propitiate you, in equal proportion."

George's eyes twinkled merrily as they locked with hers. "And here I thought I would get nothing but loving gratitude. 'Oh, thank you, my dear husband, for bringing my dreams to life!'"

"As I said," Emma responded, "Equal proportion of propitiation - 'thank you, George, for this lovely gift' - and punishment - 'how dare you leave me out of an adventure as grand as this?'"

"Perhaps it was in anticipation of just such a resolution," her husband teased back.

"Hush," Emma commanded and her husband readily complied. "I will deal out my punishment first." With nimble fingers, she carefully undid his cravat, laying it over a nearby chair. When he shifted as if to take over, Emma glared fiercely and he subsided. His long-tailed grey jacket was next, followed by a fawn waistcoat, and finally a white shirt. With his upper body bare, Emma allowed herself the pleasure of dragging her palm down his torso, past the waistband of his trousers where it flexed briefly against the surging warmth.

"Boots," she directed and swept to one side. With a heated glance, George made his way to one of the new chaises and quickly rid himself of the offending items, then sat silently.

Emma smiled at his stillness, not suggesting passivity, but leashed power, awaiting her command. "The rest," she airily declared as she let her own fingers trip down the front of her spencer, shrugging it off, and turning to regard the finely painted walls while George stepped up behind her, loosening her dress. Emma let it fall forward on her hands and stepped out of the lemon-yellow gown. Before she could lay it carefully over a chair - no unseemly wrinkles should tell the tale of what happened this day! - her husband pulled the gown from her grasp and laid it across another chair.

Emma nodded in satisfaction. "Propitiation may begin," she announced, and was swept up in George's hot embrace. With deft movements, he manoeuvred them over to the second chaise, pulling her over him in a fine frenzy of kisses and caresses. Inch by inch, her husband traced her form with lips and fingers, driving her nearly senseless. But when he would have flipped them around so that he loomed above, Emma resisted.

"Perhaps one last punishment," she whispered as she raised herself astride his flushed form. George's mouth shaped agonized words but he held utterly still as she waited there, withholding, for one powerful instance, their joining, before settling down against him. All the while, their eyes locked, neither looking away, as Emma set the pace. First slowly and then with increasing urgency, they rocked and gasped to completion. At the last, they both closed their eyes, and Emma fell forward, equal parts exhausted and exhilarated.

She felt the smile form on George's face just above hers nestled into the side of his neck, and his warm hand lazily sweeping from her shoulder to the curve of her derriere, and back again. "Well," she heard him manage, "if this is to be my lot in life, I will bear my burdens as well as any man might."

Emma snorted and raised her head, rearranging herself so that her folded hands lay across George's collarbone where her chin could rest while she let her gaze shift from her spouse's familiar face to the elegant music room he'd prepared for her enjoyment. "I am not certain that I have succeeded in my aim, then. For I would not be left out of any such future endeavours, you know. And reward will be all the more sweet if you heed me in future," Emma pronounced.

George finally shifted himself enough to pull them side by side on the surprisingly capacious chaise where they lay entwined. "I confess I'm not much deterred by this mix of pleasure and pain, dear Emma," he advised.

"Good," she responded. "For I could reinforce these lessons if you are willing to put off our examination of the pianoforte for just a bit longer. Perhaps we might leave the music for another day?" Emma let her fingers stray again, slipping from his breastbone straight down the centre of his chest, finally rubbing against his body's visible interest.

"I am your entirely willing pupil," George agreed with a gasp of laughter before Emma's attention consumed him utterly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my nameless beta whose careful reading was a great help. Title taken from "Queen Bee" by Johnny Flynn (end title song in the movie).


End file.
